Best cheap date

The Big Dam Bridge.

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By the time you've got a couple of kids and a mortgage and a cat, you find that it really doesn't matter how much a date costs as long as you get one every once in awhile. Sure, everybody likes a night out at some fancy-schmantzy joint with linen tablecloths, but for the Marriage Marathoners among us, it's mostly about the alone time. For those in the first throes of dating passion, however — and I'm speaking almost exclusively to the males of the species right now — there's a subtle art to pulling off the cheap date. Take it from an old hand, young fellas: If you're forced to go bucks-light in the first two or three outings, the trick is to make it look like you've planned the most romantic together-time in the world, and it just so happens it cost next to nothing.
That, in a nutshell, is why Pulaski County's Big Dam Bridge — winner of this year's Best of Arkansas award for Cheap Date — is such a godsend for cash-strapped daters. You can't get much cheaper than free (free from an admission standpoint, anyway; the Tea Partiers among us might find the taxpayer-funded construction a romance-busting buzzkill), and it's pretty much the best place in town for strolling hand in hand, admiring the sunset light show over Pinnacle Mountain.
A recent trip there around dusk on date night found the bridge filled with the whole spectrum of the human relationship rainbow: teen-age sweethearts, families with kids in strollers, aging Boomers walking their dogs, runners, bikers, young couples and old couples. This writer hadn't been up on the Big Dam Bridge since last spring, we're sorry to say — too hot, we reasoned — but after scaling the ramp at the south end and reaching the middle of the river, my honey and I found something we'd been missing since at least April: the sensation of being outdoors and simultaneously cool. The breeze sweeping down the river valley is constant, and by 7:30 p.m., even on a day that hit the upper 90s, the Big Dam Bridge was a good 15 degrees cooler than the surrounding terrain. Too, as the sun sank behind the mountains and the lights of the drivers along the I-430 span upriver became a constant, crawling glow, we remembered another of the bridge's charms: the Zen-like beauty of leaning over the railing and feeling as if you're suspended there in the wind, a hundred feet above the water like a bird. The fittings on the flagpoles overhead rang slowly like bells. I held my wife's hand. The sky in the west went orange, then blue, then purple. The shoes of the runners went slap, slap, slap on the concrete. Friends chatted nearby about their dogs. Young lovers on the benches smiled and looked at each other in the fading light. To get any more romantic than that will probably involve stealing the Eiffel Tower like a Bond flick supervillain and relocating it to North Little Rock.
Walking along the bridge, hand in hand, were Little Rock residents Michael Dennis and Dorothy Lahey. They're a little older, but they looked very much in love — comfortable with one another, in the way that only time and deep understanding can bestow. They said they come to the bridge for a "walking date" two or three times a week, enjoying the space and each other's company.

"It's one of the most interesting and easy places you can get some real exercise," Dennis said. "It's up to the individual how much exercise you get. You can either do it once across and back or you can do it five or six times. I've done this on a bicycle, I've done it on rollerblades, and I've done it walking. It's great."

Lahey said one of the appeals of the bridge is that it's free and open to everybody. "We bring a couple of drinks when we come," Lahey said. "Pack an ice chest with some vitamin water, and usually go out and eat something afterwards. ... Dogs are invited. That's always nice. There aren't any limitations."

Speaking of Big Dam Bridge - Murray Park, Big Dam Bridge

The Morrilton Chamber of Commerce will soon announce results of a feasibility study to build a "Little Dam Bridge" over the Arkansas River Ormond Lock and Dam in Morrilton as a tourist attraction. /more/

A variety of bigshots will gather at 10 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, on the Little Rock side of the Big Dam Bridge to mark the 10th anniversary of what is said to be "the world’s longest pedestrian-and-bicycle bridge built and designed solely for that purpose." The investment long ago proved a wise one. /more/

I learned from a bicycling blog, JBarCycling, that hours on the popular Big Dam Bridge may be curtailed because of vandalism and dogs could be banned because of inconsiderate owners. /more/

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported this morning on a League of Women Voters forum for candidates for county judge and I'd have to give Republican Phil Wyrick the edge in answers reported there, particularly on operation of the County Jail. /more/

On today's episode: There's a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying going on over the future of gambling in Arkansas, the Arkansas Supreme Court makes key rulings, and the city of Little Rock tries to raise private money for restrooms at the Big Dam Bridge. What happened to that big sales tax increase? /more/

The city of Little Rock will hold a public meeting at 5:30 p.m. today at the Willie Hinton Center at 3805 W. 12th to to talk about partnering with the Big Dam Bridge Foundation and a grant from the state to build restrooms near the Murray Lock and Dam for the crowds that cross the Big Dam Bridge on foot and bike. /more/

Parking has been reduced at the Big Dam Bridge, which draws huge crowds of families, walkers, runners and bicyclists on weekends, after a complaint by Corps of Engineers workers at the Murray Lock and Dam that cars were making egress and ingress to the fenced-off federal property unsafe. /more/

The East Coast Timing Association held its Arkansas 1-Mile Challenge in September, where racers from all over the country mixed gasoline, steel and passion in the pursuit of raw speed.

Interest in the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action has exploded since the massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in Florida. Leaders here say they're in the battle for 'gun sense' until the job is done.